Sarean #37. Calligraphy, Typography and New Technologies were the three main subjects addressed in the interview.
Few days ago I was interviewed in Sarean, a radio programme of the Basque Radio in collaboration with Sarean.eus association. We talked mainly about Calligraphy and Typography. We also discussed how new technologies make the production of comercial fonts easier, cheaper and faster. We went through the whole type design process, from the first sketches to the tools used for the final production of digital typefaces.
Glad to see Typography is gaining presence in my near environment. If you are curious and want to know how "type talk" sounds in Basque, clic on the image or follow ...

Talking about Tifinagh and multi-script typefaces as a way to normalise cultural diversity in multi lingual environments. Image: E. Herrera.
From 27 to 29 June 2018 the Second Conference in Graphic Design, organised by the Graphic Design Department of the University of the Basque Country took place in Bilbao. The theme of this edition was "Design and sustainable society" and I was given the opportunity to talk about Tifinagh.
Various aspects concerning the link between Graphic Design and sustainability were discussed: gender, accessibility, environment, identity, activism... It was the ideal context to talk about how Type Design may help normalising the presence of minority languages and scripts in multicultural areas, in this particular case giving voice to the Tifinagh script in a context in ...

Before we start drawing in the computer it is worth experimenting with different analog tools to see how they affect letter forms.
2018 started with a stimulating commission: I was invited to give a workshop on Tifinagh type design at the École Supérieure des Arts Visuels (ÉSAV) in Marrakech.
15 students of the Master's of Graphic Design took part in an intense one-week workshop. The goal was to make them familiar with the general principles of type design and to illustrate how those apply to the design of the specific letter forms of Tifinagh. We also looked into the history of the alphabet, tried different tools to experiment how they affect the shapes of its letters, got acquainted with specific ...

The "Qandus team" on stage at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. On screen Qandus Tifinagh dark. Image: Mariko Takagi.
Few days after the presentation in Amsterdam Kristyan Sarkis, Laura Meseguer and myself came to the ATypI conference in Warsaw to talk about our experience designing Qandus, one of the type families developed during the Typographic Matchmaking in the Maghrib project. We called the talk "A Typographic Maghribi Trialogue" as a way to underline the intense and continuous exchange among the three cultures and writing traditions –Arabic, Latin and Tifinagh– that this project has called for, but also to recall the necessary respect for each one's peculiarities and specific features. In my view, our's was one of the projects that best ...

Amsterdam was our last stage in the Typographic Matchmaking in the Maghrib project. Four intense days were the final sprint that eventually resulted in the presentation of the whole project in the FramerFramed space on the 10th of September. It was a time for fine tuning, giving and taking feedback from every member of the teams and also to exchange our ideas about our work, research and design processes. The images below show some instances of the three typefaces in use. Qandus, Tubqal and Elixir have diverse personalities and each one solves the issue of harmonizing the three scripts –Latin, Arabic and Tifinagh— in a distinctive way. I was lucky enough to be part of two teams –Tubqal and Qandus—, so I had the chance to be involved in ...

It is a pleasure to help such hard-working students. Image: Brahim Boucheikha.
It was a delightful feeling to go back to the IRCAM (The Royal Institute for the Amazigh Culture) to give this workshop about Tifinagh type design with Brahim Boucheikha. I still remember my research trip to Morocco in 2014, when I was working on my dissertation, and how I was welcomed and helped at the IRCAM. This time, I was really pleased to give back my knowledge about typography to five enthusiastic Moroccan students.
The workshop took place from July 18th to 22nd. After an intense week we were able to present a bunch of new projects that will certainly enrich the typographic scene of the Tifinagh when they are eventually completed. The projects aim to ...